Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

For more than 25 years, Heidi Kuhn, at the helm of Roots of Peace, has been dedicated to cultivating peace and to helping rebuild war-torn countries by turning the scourge of land-mined areas into profitable agricultural land. For example, in Afghanistan, a country 80-percent dependent on an agricultural economy, her esteemed charity has removed millions of landmines and planted millions of trees...

Black communities have a long and complicated relationship with American soil. The ongoing call to address systemic racism, patterns of abuse, violence and dispossession have brought back to the mainstream the conversation of BIPOC communities' historical connections to land. What are the connections between this history and current "food apartheid" (food deserts)? How is the Black farming movemen...

Corporate America and our government both hold the power to shape our daily lives. However, Alex Ross says recently there seems to be a blur between big business and Congress in the “new Gilded Age”. Private companies have become as powerful as countries, leading many to wonder about the implications for everyday people. In the face of unprecedented global change, New York Times bestselling author...

Since the killing of George Floyd in May 2020, Americans have been engaged in a vast discussion on the state of race in America. Like many topics in the country, the issue has become a divisive, tense debate about how the country faces its racist past, the meaning of systemic racism, the role of critical race theory in K–12 schools and universities, and what it means to be "anti-racist" during thi...

In 2015, renowned writer Sam Quinones woke up many Americans to the dangers of the opioid epidemic with his award-winning book Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic. In his new book, The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth, Quinones follows up Dreamland with an exploration of the terrifying next stages of the opioid epidemic, and the stories...

Join us for a conversation with Jay Caspian Kang, who draws on a combination of family history and original reporting to explore—and reimagine—Asian American identity in a Black and white world. In 1965, a new immigration law lifted a century of restrictions against Asian immigrants to the United States. Nobody, including the lawmakers who passed the bill, expected it to transform the country’s de...

Within months of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, public health systems in the United States (and around the world) were stretched to the brink of destruction. The virus infected millions, killed hundreds of thousands, and effectively made the country stand still. Nineteen months later, the pandemic continues. Yet America was already in poor health before COVID-19 appeared. The country'...

Rick Ridgeway estimates he’s spent about five years of his life sleeping in tents, often in the world’s most remote places alongside fellow outdoor adventure luminaries. Ridgeway worked for Patagonia for 15 years and was behind the company’s infamous “Don’t Buy This Jacket” ad campaign, which paradoxically advocated sustainability and increased sales.  Outdoor companies like Patagonia may push for...

Building upon decades of work, the field of psychiatry stands at the precipice of a new era as advancements in neuroscience and population health are being successfully applied to the treatment of mental health disorders. From personalized brain stimulation for treatment-resistant depression to the use of technology to bring care to historically underserved groups, a wave of innovations is revolut...

From his first day at West Point to his years of deployment in Afghanistan, retired four-star U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal is no stranger to the deadly risks of combat. Throughout his illustrious career and efforts helping business leaders navigate a global pandemic, General McChrystal has seen how individuals and organizations have failed to mitigate risk by focusing solely on the probabi...

There is no version of America’s past, present or future that does not involve the Latinx community. As the second-largest ethnic group, the Latinx community has played a fundamental role in shaping our culture, our elections and our society. And yet, as Nuestra America Fund (NAF) founder Diana Campoamor argues, time and time again this community is undermined, their contributions are pushed to th...

ReGeneration has two meanings: It refers to regenerating life on earth, and it refers to a new generation of humans coming together to reverse global warming. Join Paul Hawken as he demonstrates, through his new work, a response to the urgency of the warming crisis with optimism and joy. You will come away with your own sense of purpose and next actions for renewal. SPEAKERS Paul Hawken Environmen...

Join us for a medical panel discussion about where we are in the COVID pandemic. What progress has been made? What failures have contributed most to making recovery so complicated? How do we, and should we, accelerate the vaccination programs in other countries? Do we have a realistic exit strategy? Or will we be living with COVID for the foreseeable future? And does that mean that the distrust in...

Sebastian Junger returns, in person, to The Commonwealth Club to discuss the ideas in his latest book, Freedom. Throughout history, he says, humans have been driven by the quest for two cherished ideals: community and freedom. The two don’t coexist easily. We value individuality and self-reliance, yet are utterly dependent on community for our most basic needs. Junger examines that tension—which l...

According to the latest IPCC Assessment Report, we’re currently on course for at least 3°C (5.4°F) of warming by 2100 even if all of the voluntary Paris Agreement emissions pledges are fulfilled. Clearly the world needs to do more to reduce emissions. But what if that’s still not enough? Solar geoengineering – such as putting sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere to reduce the amount of the sun’s...

Alyssa Milano’s renowned career is characterized by one success after another. If you don’t know her from one of her many TV or movie roles since her debut at age seven, then it's undoubtedly her activism in politics and the #MeToo movement that has put her on the radar. Milano’s life — being raised in the limelight of celebrity and being in the rooms others dream of — has given her unmatched insi...

There is only one room that bears witness to marriages, divorces, adoptions, and criminal proceedings—the courtroom. Judge LaDoris Hazzard Cordell has sat in this room and dedicated nearly five decades of her life to putting justice back into the justice system. As the first African American female judge to serve on the Superior Court in northern California and a trailblazer in many other respects...

Many families don’t expect that dementia will be a factor in financial decisions, but it is more common than we think. The challenge is that people can start having trouble managing their finances years before being diagnosed with dementia. Our expert panel delves into this subject so you will recognize when a loved one's capacity is declining and what to do about it. They will explain a dementia...

Dubbed the social justice manifesto, Until I Am Free, by author Keisha N. Blain, is a unique opportunity to hear about life from the perspective of a working, impoverished and disabled Black woman. Blain, an award-winning historian, details the life and accomplishments of Fannie Lou Hamer, a civil rights activist too often forgotten in the narrative of racial justice. Defying the layers of margina...

With dazzling illustrations, sumptuous recipes, and its own curated playlist, Bryant Terry’s sixth book, Black Food: Stories, Art, and Recipes from Across the African Diaspora, is a feast for the senses. Terry, a renowned vegan culinary innovator, returns to dive into the depth and breadth of Black foodways spanning nations and time. Black Food celebrates both the creations and creators, pairing h...

As president of One Fair Wage and director of the Food Labor Research Center at UC Berkeley, Saru Jayaraman has fought for a reimagining of tipped industries. She argues that at just $2.13 an hour, what tipped-wage workers are paid is unlivable on its own and that, unsurprisingly, the people in these jobs are often society's most vulnerable: undocumented, BIPOC, and women workers who already make...

Some might say that Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods were destined to meet. Poor, a professor of photography at CSU Sacramento, was volunteering with the Prison University Project at San Quentin State Prison when she met Woods, who was serving a 31-year-to-life sentence. The two bonded over a love of storytelling and with no formal experience, began a podcast together where they showcase the realitie...

Many nations have a national poet, whose poetry helps carve out their own unique cultural niche in human civilization. Italy has enjoyed many literary geniuses for over two millennia, but still looks to one man the most: Dante. Like major poets in other cultures, Dante’s influence on the Italian language can hardly be overstated. The Divine Comedy was the first major work of literature to leave La...

Join this important discussion to learn how the White House is forming critical partnerships across sectors to fight anti-Asian hate crimes, moving forward the administration's Build Back Better Agenda to rebuild the economy, and ensuring the advancement of the Asian American/Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (AA and NHPI) communities. Attendees will have the opportunity to identify issues the AA/N...

Join us for a virtual conversation with Fritjof Capra to discuss the evolution of his thought. In the late 1950s Capra read the work of Werner Heisenberg, a founder of quantum mechanics, and quickly intuited connections between the discoveries of quantum physics and the traditions of Eastern philosophy. The result was his bestselling book, The Tao of Physics. His synthesis, which dispensed with th...